Nuts and Berries
by In The Clouds
Summary: The Turtles are forced to entertain themselves with nothing but what nature provides for them...


Disclaimer: I don't own the TMNT or associated characters. I also don't own NintendoGamecube, or any of the games you can play on it. And if you don't know what I mean by 'Melee', it's short for Super Smash Brother's Melee, a Nintendo game.

This is it! My first TMNT fanfic! Some of it was originally going to be in a much larger fic that I had planned, but I never got past the first chapter in that one…

Oh! And I own big 'thank you' to Reinbeauchaser. Without her, this story would've never been posted and I'd still be clueless…so, thank you Rene!

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"Just one hour, guys," April said as she ushered four gloomy turtles out the door. "I know you can find lots of fun things to do _outside_." Taking one last look at the forlorn teenagers on the porch, she walked back into the house, closing the door behind. There was a collective sigh as it shut, leaving the four boys staring at it longingly.

"Well," Leo finally broke the depressing silence. "We might as well make the best of our time."

"Way to go, Mikey." Raph shot an angry glare at his younger brother.

"Hey, it was my turn!" Mike argued.

"I told you to wait till we were done! Geez, Mikey! We ain't just gonna stop in the middle of a game!" Raph yelled, startling the birds out of a nearby tree.

"Cool it, guys," Leonardo tried to diffuse the situation. "We didn't come to the farmhouse to play GameCube, we came out here to relax and enjoy nature." Raphael groaned and rolled his eyes.

Sitting on the porch steps Donatello sighed. He had been _this_ close to beating both Leo and Raph in Melee…

"So what are we supposed to do now?" Raph demanded.

"Well, we could always use some extra practice," Leo suggested.

Hearing this, Donnie quickly snapped out of his own thoughts. "Leo, you just said that we came out here to relax, remember? And we already had practice once today!"

"A true ninja is always training himself," Leo scolded.

"Forget it, Leo." Raph said, walking off the porch. "I'm gonna go see what Casey's up to."

"He's not here," Don called after him, stopping him in his tracks. "April sent him to the store awhile ago."

Raphael processed this information for a moment, before a dark look came over his face. "What do you think she's doin' in there?"

They all looked suspiciously towards the house.

"Maybe she's chopping up dead bodies to serve for dinner…" Mike said with a smile creeping up his face.

"We're having chicken for dinner, Mikey," Leo stated bluntly.

"The dead body of a chicken!" Mike exclaimed. His brothers simply rolled their eyes at him.

A bored silence engulfed the porch once again; each turtle lost in his own thoughts…and once again Leo was the first to break it. "You know, yesterday, when I was walking around the woods, I saw some blackberry bushes. Maybe we should go and pick them."

"Blackberries?" Leo immediately had Mike's undivided attention.

"Yeah. We could use those old baskets in the barn to carry them in…" Leo looked at his two other brothers. Donnie slowly nodded his head, deciding that he had nothing better to do.

"Yes!" Mikey jumped up in excitement and sprinted towards the barn, dragging Don with him.

"You coming?" Leo asked. Raph shrugged nonchalantly before following them into the barn.

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"Mmm…yummy." Mike declared after popping another berry into his mouth.

"Mikey, you're supposed to pick them, not eat them." Don chided after noticing Mike's empty basket.

"Aw, we're just picking them so we can eat them later anyways." Mike said, licking the berry juice from his lips.

"Enough, Mike. I'm sure we'll be able to find a better use for these berries than just feeding _you_ with them." Leo determined.

"Like what?"

"Like, we could use them in pies, or jellies, or…maybe we could give them to April as a gift or something." Don answered; though, at the end, he seemed to be talking to more to himself than to Michelangelo.

"Or…" A devious grin made its way up Mikey's face as he plucked a particularly fat berry from the bush. Seeing that his unsuspecting brother was preoccupied, Mike pulled back his throwing arm and took aim… "Hey, Donnie!" Don turned around and was met with the 'splat!' of something squishy connecting with his plastron. Disgusted, he watched as the remains of a blackberry slowly slid down his front. The sound of snickering soon brought him out of his trance. Donatello assessed the situation carefully: he could ignore the fact that his little brother had just pelted him with a pink stain, or, he could fight back…

Mikey's giggling didn't last long. After taking a moment to notice the maniacal look on Don's face and his basket full of blackberry bombs, Mike did the sensible thing and ran.

"What got into those two?" Leo asked as he watched Mike run out of sight with a grinning Donnie hot on his heels. Raph just shrugged before disappearing behind a berry bush. Shaking his head, Leo went back to picking blackberries; being careful to avoid to sharp thorns surrounding the plant. As cautious as he was, he had still managed to prick himself several times on the camouflaged spikes. Suddenly, Raphael gave a yelp from inside the bushes. "What is it?" Leo put a hand on his katana, ready for anything. With eyes as big as flying saucers, Raphael backed away from the shrubbery looking like he'd seen a ghost. "Well?" Leo hissed, body tensed and ready to decapitate anything that came out those bushes. Raph slowly refocused his wide eyes to stare at his brother. Leo stared back, waiting for an explanation…

"What?" Raph finally yelled at him, and then huffily stomped away into the trees. Leo watched with a bamboozled expression as Raphael clomped off. Then he turned to examine the bushes that his brother had been so eager to get away from. Peeking around inside leaves, he found nothing out of the ordinary. Shrugging to himself at Raph's odd behavior, he reached into the bush for another ripe berry when something caught his eye. A large black and yellow spider was creeping its long legs protectively around the plump blackberry. Leo looked in the direction Raph had disappeared in and grinned.

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A little over an hour after she had kicked the guys out of the house, April stood on the front porch, wondering where the teen turtles had gone. She was impressed that they weren't still at the door waiting to be let back in. Satisfied that the ninja's had found another source of entertainment besides the TV, April sat down on the porch steps to watch the sunset.

_"Now if only Casey would show up with those groceries…"_

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Red, pink, and orange hues painted the western sky as four brothers sat gazing at the sunset from atop a grassy hill. A sort of peacefulness surrounded the landscape, broken only by the occasional 'squish' from Mikey as he squashed another berry between his teeth.

Leonardo sighed contentedly. "You know, as tough as things get sometimes, we really do have a lot to be thankful for." Mike rolled his eyes and absently twirled his fingers around the berries in Leo's berry basket. "I mean," Leo continued. "Think of how fortunate we are to have friends like April and Casey. And Master Splinter; could you imagine what might of happened if he hadn't found us? He's loved us and raised us like a true father." Mike considered moving the berries out of the basket and pretending to vomit into it, when a better idea hit him. "But you know what I'm most thankful for?" Leo asked. "I'm thankful that no matter what we go through, no matter how terrible things may seem, we'll always have each other."

"Splat!"

Slowly opening his eyes, Leo glared disbelievingly at his younger brother as berry juice dripped down his face. Mike tried to hold in a snicker at the sight of their pink-faced leader, while Don and Raph glared at him with the same incredulous look that Leo had.

"Get him!" Raph growled.

"Eeek!"

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Later that evening, April was greeted with the strange sight of four pink polka-dotted turtles at her front door. Well, at least three of them were polka-dotted; one was pure pink. April held her tongue as Donnie ceremoniously presented her with a grand total of five blackberries; all that had survived the merciless slaughter. Politely pretending to be more interested in his gift than his pinkness, April solemnly thanked him and took the basket into the kitchen. Once there, she surrendered herself to the giggles.

Four showers later, the still pink (but much less sticky) turtle brothers gathered around the TV, happily watching as the box worked its hypnotic charm. That is, until Raph wanted to watch wrestling.

And Casey never did come back from the grocery store…

THE END


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